Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has arrived in Indonesia for annual talks with the country's president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

It is Mr Rudd's fifth visit to Indonesia and his first overseas trip since regaining the Labor leadership last week.

Indonesia currently is not one of Australia's top 10 trading partners and Mr Rudd says he wants that to change.

If re-elected, he has promised to lead a delegation of Australia's top 100 businesses to the country by the end of the year and will make the pledge at a business breakfast this morning.

Mr Rudd spoke about the importance of business ties with Indonesia after landing in Jakarta.

"We've got a long, long way to go in building a much stronger trade and investment relationship," he said.

The Prime Minister dined privately with Mr Yudhoyono last night and the pair will hold bilateral talks in Bogle today.

The ABC understands the leaders will announce a project in which Australian genetics technology will be used to help Indonesia grow the Indonesian cattle herd.

It will be funded in part through AusAid and by contributions from Australian pastoral companies, and because Australian companies own genetic patents, the ABC has been told the agreement will be lucrative over the coming decades as Indonesia's middle class grows to more than 130 million people.

Their high-level meeting is also expected to include discussions on security ties and ways to reduce the number of asylum seekers leaving Indonesian shores on boats bound for Australia.

Ahead of leaving for Indonesia, Mr Rudd yesterday said he did not expect to be in a position make a policy announcement on asylum seekers immediately after his return.

"I think it's quite wrong to have huge expectations that there's going to be some headline result out of what is a regular meeting between the prime minister of Australia and the president of Indonesia," he said.

Turning boats back would be 'inhuman'

The senior adviser to Indonesia's vice president says the Coalition's proposed policy of turning asylum seeker boats back to Indonesia would be inhuman.

Speaking on the ABC's Q & A program, Dewi Fortuna Anwar says both Indonesia and Australia have a responsibility to try and reduce the danger faced by asylum seekers at sea.

Ms Anwar says turning boats back to Indonesia will make both countries look bad.

"Whether we disagree on approaches, the most important thing is that we should not necessarily put people in danger," she said.

"And to have people going back and forth in the boats and sinking, both Indonesia and Australia will look very very bad.

"And I think that we should not allow ourselves to be so inhuman."

Ms Anwar says she hopes Indonesia will not become "trapped" into taking sides in the debate.

"The Indonesian president will not allow himself to be trapped in the debates which are very much related to Australian politics," she said.

"We value the friendship of Australia and the Australian people and we like to be able to work closely with Australia, regardless of who is in power."

However, Ms Anwar says most Australians are unaware of the major democratic changes Indonesia has made in recent years.

She said she is particularly disappointed at the low number of Australian students learning Indonesian language in schools.

"Now it is really, really quite sad that the teaching of Indonesian language, and so on, is really going down," she said.

"So, at a time when Indonesia is moving very fast, and there's some very, very fundamental changes that have taken place in Indonesia since 1998... a lot of our friends in Australia are... not as well informed."